


There's a Hole in My Heart

by Duck_Life



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Age of X-Man, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, X-Tremists, rictor loves shatterstar and his friends and the earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 12:32:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19376779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Julio runs a movie theater and tries to remember.





	There's a Hole in My Heart

Julio Richter comes from a hatchery, just like everybody else. He learns words like “mother,” “father” and “sister” in their historical, backward context, never hears them applied to anybody around him. 

And the world is a good place.

When Julio is 13, his gift emerges. He can shake the ground, but it’s more than that. He can feel the shifting plates beneath his feet, the fault lines and tremors that make up the world. When he first hears the term “Mother Earth,” it is spoken jokingly, derisively. But he doesn’t take it that way. And something clicks into place.

* * *

Julio kisses a boy with bright red hair and it feels like coming alive. 

“This… this isn’t right,” Rusty insists, but he hasn’t removed his hands from Julio’s shoulders. 

“Feels like it, though,” Julio says, because the sky-high feeling in his chest doesn’t seem barbaric or backward. This feeling, it’s as beautiful and natural as when he discovered his mutant powers. He feels  _ whole _ . “Don’t you feel that?”

“I  _ feel _ like we’re gonna get in trouble,” Rusty tells him. 

Rusty is a good enough guy not to sell out Julio, but he’s also too straightlaced to keep sneaking around. He confesses everything to one of his friends.

And Sally turns him into Department X for rehabilitation. 

The next time Rictor sees him, Rusty acts different, talks different. Doesn’t recognize him. In a school where he’s surrounded by other young mutants just like him, Rictor feels suddenly, achingly lonely. 

* * *

The movies coming out of Studio X are… fine. Rictor watches them with his classmates, even goes to see some of them on opening night. 

The first non-sanctioned movie he sees is called “It’s A Wonderful Life.” H wakes him up in the middle of the night like he did during the meteor shower a month before, only this time they don't go up on the roof. Instead, H takes him to the rec room and hits play on the VCR. 

That movie changes everything. There are no mutants in it, but there are  _ families _ . There are babies who don't come from hatcheries. People kiss and fall in love. And instead of looking primitive and disgusting, it looks… nice. Wonderful, even. 

* * *

H goes away forever not long after that. 

He is the first person Rictor  _ knows _ has been erased from his memory, because whoever he was, his name eludes Ric. He can't quite picture the man, either, just gets little bits and pieces— the color blue, the feeling of being lifted up, the "Periodic Table" song, a chessboard. 

Rictor learns quickly never to mention H, or he'll lose what precious few memories are still clinging to his stubborn mind. H may be a ghost, but the vague almost-there picture of him in Rictor's head is still something. 

More concerning is what the memory wipe implies. How many people has Rictor lost like this? The way Rusty lost  _ him _ ? How many more ghosts does he have that he can't even feel or remember?

* * *

That movie. 

That movie stays with him in crystal-clear detail. 

* * *

When he graduates from the Summers Institute, Ric starts working on what he sees as a mission. Or maybe a calling. 

He tracks down the films that the propaganda machines are trying to hide. He travels around under the guise of doing community cleanup, but he's also sneaking into abandoned movie theaters in secret, raiding old video libraries that have been shut down. He wants other people to see what he saw when he watched that old black-and-white classic: that love and intimacy aren’t wrong. That family isn’t a weakness. 

He wants to wake the world up. 

* * *

Or, at least, he wants the people who are already awake to have a place to escape to. He doesn’t want kids like Rusty getting scared and turning themselves in. He wants the kids who are different, the kids who are scared of their own feelings, to have a place where they can be themselves. 

* * *

Adults, too. 

The day the skier guy from Department X shows up, Rictor panics, tries to head him off in the lobby. “This theater’s condemned, actually,” he babbles, although obviously all the lights are on and there’s fresh popcorn in the warmer. “I’m just, uh, looting. Yeah, looting. But I’ll leave, no problem.”

“Rictor,” the man says, a strange expression on his face. “That’s your name, right? Rictor?”

“My friends call me Julio,” Rictor says, mouth like a runaway train, hoping he’s buying time for the kids in the auditorium to get wise and get out. “Or, I mean, they would, if I had friends. But, uh, you know, no friends, no family. No attachments! You know.” 

“Rictor— Julio, relax, I’m not here on duty,” the man promises him. “I… I heard about this theater from a friend.” Rictor watches him suspiciously. “I can keep a secret. I promise. I just want to watch the show.” 

Rictor squints at him. “Yeah, okay,” he says finally. “But listen… whoever you see in there, whatever they’re up to?  _ You didn’t see it _ , got it?”

“Of course,” the man says. 

He starts to go in but Rictor grabs his arm. “Wait… what’s your name?” 

“Jean-Paul Beaubier,” he says, and then a puzzled expression crosses his face, like there’s supposed to be more to the name. Like he’s forgotten something. “My friends call me JP.” 

“Well,” Rictor says, “enjoy the show.” 

* * *

Rictor lives a life of shadows and ghosts, but at least he’s living it. He finds things to live for, in the movies and music he scavenges. Silent films full of passionate kisses, records full of love songs on both sides. 

The strangest things send him spiralling— music videos from the 1990s, old movie musicals, Batman: The Animated Series. 

Sometimes, as he’s sitting in the projector box watching the movies and shows play down below, Rictor turns to share something with somebody beside him, but there’s never anyone there. 

* * *

The day JP shows up to tell him that Department X knows about the theater, Rictor can’t believe it. Doesn’t  _ want _ to believe it, but he also knows that there’s someone else here with JP. He lets Iceman and Northstar argue for a moment before returning to the lobby to break it up and invite them to the roof for champagne.

If the theater is coming down around his ears, he at least wants to go out in style. And if it’s not… it’s still a damn fine night to drink champagne on the roof. 

* * *

He likes Jubilee well enough, though they've never been on a team together. She's funny, lively. 

The way she's acting now, though— blowing up the street, leaving a trail of fire behind her, swinging her bat. Her voice sounds completely normal when she calls up to him, but he knows there's rage boiling underneath. She throws another firework and watches a storefront blow up. 

And she reminds him of someone. Another ghost.

JP suggests a riot, and that’s probably the best thing Rictor’s ever heard him say. He’s ready to bring this place crashing down. For Rusty, and H, and all his ghosts. For the family he can’t remember. And especially, especially, for whoever it is that leaves him with tears in his eyes every time he watches “Singin’ in the Rain.” 

* * *

They smash shit. 

And it’s fun, sure, because smashing shit is always fun, especially when you’re in the kind of mood that Rictor’s in, but there’s something missing. As Jubes accumulates more stolen clothes, she keeps talking about her kid, telling them all about his favorite food (cinnamon buns) and his first word (also cinnamon buns). 

And JP keeps going on and on about his husband Kyle and how great he is, and Ric’s  _ happy  _  for them, kind of savagely  _ thrilled _ that they are all of them bringing down this messed up dystopia around them in the name of love and family, but there’s still that disconnect. And then something else happens. 

It’s like… well, it’s not pleasant. Whatever happens when that weird purple butterfly appears over his eyes, it feels kind of like a brain freeze, or like standing up too fast after sitting for a three-hour movie. 

But he remembers something. 

It’s just a single memory, an instant. 

_ “I am so glad to  _ **_finally_ ** _ have gotten to the floor of all this.”  _

_                         “‘Bottom,’ amigo. ‘To the bottom of this.’” _

_                                                          “ _ **_Whatever_ ** _ , Rictor.”  _

In the memory, he is clutching the hand of another man, a man with red hair and a mark over one eye and with his image more memories come flooding in and—

“Fuck,” Rictor yells, feeling everything that has been taken from him slide back into place in his mind. 

* * *

He heads for the prison, anger and affection flooding through him like adrenaline. Everything he does, he does with his ghost in mind, the memory he’s been missing. The first person Rictor had shared his movies and music with. 

When he finally remembers the name, he doesn’t want to stop saying it. “Shatterstar,” he says as he shakes the earth apart. “Shatterstar.” 

He is so glad to finally have gotten to the floor of all this. 

* * *

Coming back to the real world… it’s weird. It’s a little like the arrivals gate of an airport, with everyone coming and going, tearful reunions all around. 

Tabby jumps on Julio so fast he doesn’t see her coming, and she’s shouting and he swings her around to hug her properly, and he feels a spike of anger at Nate Grey for making him forget what the word “family” means. 

His whole team is there— Sam claps him on the shoulder and Jimmy wraps him in a big bearhug and…

“Julio.”

Seeing Shatterstar is like breaking through the surface of icy black water and finally being able to  _ breathe _ again. 

“Come here,” Julio says, unable to keep the waver from his voice, and he slings his arms around Shatterstar’s neck and ’Star has his hands on Julio’s waist and they just stand there, like that. Not even kissing, as much as Julio wants to be. Just holding each other. Clinging tight, because yet again some science-fiction bullshit has tried to keep them apart, and yet again, they’ve won. 

“I missed you,” Julio swears, his eyes rimmed with red. “I didn't even remember you but I still missed you, you know?” He cradles Shatterstar's face in his hands, his thumbs pressing against Star's cheekbones, like he is trying to memorize everything about the way his boyfriend looks. “It was… it was awful. I knew something was wrong but I didn't know what. I… I never want to forget you, ever again.”

“Tell me you are real,” Shatterstar insists, and kisses him roughly. “I was sure you were dead, Rictor.” 

“I’m okay,” he promises. “Well… I am now, anyway.” 

“Tell me,” ’Star says more urgently. 

Rictor smiles. “Does this feel real to you?” he says, and kisses him again. 


End file.
